Tuesday's onslaughts on
the World Trade Center and the Pentagon are being likened to Pearl Harbor.
The comparison is just. The attacks were near miracles of logistical calculation,
timing, execution and devastation inflicted on the targets.

There may be another similarity.
The possibility of a Japanese attack in early December 1941 was known to
U.S. naval intelligence and to President Roosevelt. On Tuesday, derision
at the failure of U.S. intelligence was widespread. The Washington Post
quoted an unnamed top official at the National Security Council as saying,
"We don't know anything here. We're watching CNN too." Are we to believe
that the $30-billion annual intelligence budget, immense electronic eavesdropping
capacity, thousands of agents around the world, produced nothing in the
way of a warning?

In fact, the editor of the London-based
Al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper, said he heard three weeks ago that Osama bin
Laden, now the prime suspect, planned "very, very big attacks against American
interests." The lust for retaliation traditionally outstrips precision
in identifying the actual assailant. By early evening Tuesday, the U.S.
national security establishment was calling for removal of all impediments
on the assassination of foreign leaders. Led by President Bush, they were
endorsing the prospect of attacks not just on the perpetrators but on those
who might have harbored them. From the nuclear priesthood comes the demand
that mini-nukes be deployed on a preemptive basis against the enemies of
America.

The targets abroad will be all the
usual suspects--the Taliban or Saddam Hussein, who started off as creatures
of U.S. intelligence. The target at home will be the Bill of Rights.

Less than a week ago the FBI raided
Infocom, the Texas-based Web host for Muslim groups such as the Council
on Islamic Relations, the Islamic Society of North America, the Islamic
Assn. for Palestine and the Holy Land Foundation. Palestinians have been
denied visas, and those in this country can, under the terms of the counterterrorism
policy during the Clinton years, be held and expelled without due process.

Tuesday's explosions were not an
hour old before terror pundits such as Anthony Cordesman, Wesley Clark,
Robert Gates and Lawrence Eagleburger were saying that these attacks had
been possible "because America is a democracy," adding that now some democratic
perquisites might have to be abandoned. What might this mean? Increased
domestic snooping by U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies? Ethnic
profiling? A national ID card system?

Tuesday did not offer a flattering
exhibition of America's leaders. President Bush gave a timid and stilted
initial reaction in Sarasota, Fla., then disappeared for an hour before
resurfacing in at a base in Barksdale, La., where he gave another flaccid
address with every appearance of being on tranquilizers. He was then flown
to a bunker in Nebraska, before someone finally had the wit to suggest
that the best place for the U.S. president at time of national emergency
is the Oval Office.

One certain beneficiary of the attacks
is Israel. Polls had been showing popular dislike here for Israel's recent
tactics, which may have been the motivation for Colin Powell's few bleats
of reproof to Israel. We will be hearing no such bleats in the weeks to
come, as Israel's leaders advise the U.S. how exactly to deal with Muslims.

"Freedom," said Bush in Sarasota,
"was attacked this morning by a faceless coward." That properly represents
the stupidity and blindness of almost all of Tuesday's mainstream political
commentary. By contrast, the commentary on economic consequences was informative
and sophisticated. Worst hit: the insurance industry. Likely outfall in
the short term: higher energy prices, a further drop in global stock markets.
Bush will have no trouble in raiding the famous lock-box, using Social
Security trust funds to give more money to the Defense Department.

Three planes are successfully steered
into three of America's most conspicuous buildings and America's response
will be to put more money in missile defense as a way of bolstering the
economy.